Final Breath (41 page)

She stopped dead. Chloe thought she saw something move in there. Maybe it was just her own approaching shadow. She hesitated for a moment, and thought about running downstairs and getting Chuck.

All at once, a figure emerged from the darkness in her bedroom. Chloe saw the outline of a man.

She started to scream.

The man lunged at her, pinned her against the wall, and covered her mouth with his gloved hand. "Don't let out another sound or I'll fucking kill you," he growled.

Trembling, Chloe eyed the gun in his other hand.

He pressed his face against hers. He was wearing a ski mask, but she still felt his warm breath swirling in her ear.

"Strip for me," he whispered.

Sydney's flight was delayed. She waited in the boarding area with her laptop plugged in. She was checking the various news coverage of this morning's sniper attack at the El station. Everyone was still calling it a gang-related incident.

She thought about the
Bitch-Sydney
envelope with the El pass inside it. The killer had broken his pattern this time. He'd given her his clue
before
going after his prey. She wondered why he'd done that.

They finally announced that boarding would soon begin.

Sydney was about to switch off her computer when she noticed a new e-mail from [email protected]. The subject heading was "Good-bye."

She clicked on the e-mail, and the standard caution came up about not opening the e-mail if she didn't know the sender. Sydney figured she knew Chloe pretty well now, so she opened it. A cartoon figure popped up on the screen. It was a little girl looking like a Kewpie Doll. She sported a red bikini and stood knee-deep in wavy water. A cartoon sun was smiling down on her. Then the waves started to rise until only the Kewpie Doll's eyes and the top of her head were above the water. Sydney gazed at the e-mail subject again:
Good-bye
.

"Oh, my God," she whispered. "Chloe's next. He's going to drown her..."

"Please...please...just take whatever you want and leave me alone," Chloe whispered.

Trembling, she stood naked in the empty tub. She tried to cover herself. He kept looking at her, up and down. And all she could see of him were his eyes through the two holes in his ski mask.

In his gloved hand, he held a gun to her head. "Get down on your knees," he growled.

Chloe obeyed him.

"Turn on the water," he said, crouching down so they stayed at eye level. "You're going to fill up the tub. Make it a comfortable temperature, Chloe. No need for it to be as cold as that lake water the other night."

Kneeling in the tub, she stopped covering her breasts for a moment so she could turn on the water. She heard him chuckle behind the mask. He gently grazed one of her nipples with the tip of his gun.

"Cut that out, asshole!" she growled, tears in her eyes. She covered her breasts again.

She heard him snicker, "Huh, feisty." He stood up straight. Keeping the gun trained on her, the man backed away to the toilet, then lowered the lid and sat down. "Do you know six hundred and ninety-one people drowned in bathtubs last year?" he asked. "Of course, a lot of them were infants and toddlers. But adults drown in bathtubs, too."

The lukewarm water was now up past the backs of Chloe's legs.

"Sometimes people slip, hit their head, and drown--in only two feet of water," he continued. "It's a lot like that woman on the beach. She got hit on the head and nearly drowned in Lake Michigan. But you rescued her. You know, if you hadn't saved her, I wouldn't be here with you right now. Are you still glad you played hero, Chloe?"

Past the sound of the tub filling, Chloe heard the phone ring in the living room. The man obviously heard it, too.

"That--that's probably my neighbor downstairs," she said. "He knows I'm up here. If I don't answer, he'll figure out something's wrong. He'll be knocking on the door next."

"Shut the fuck up," he hissed. "Turn off the water."

The pipes let out a squeak as she turned off the water. She could hear the answering machine click on:
"Hello, this isn't really Chloe, but an amazingly lifelike recording of my voice. Leave a message and the real me will call you back."

The beep sounded.
"Chloe? Chloe, it's Sydney, are you there? Please, pick up. It's urgent. I'm going to keep talking until you pick up. I just tried your cell, and there wasn't an answer there either. Listen, I think you're in danger. I'm calling the police next. Someone just sent me an e-mail on your account. It--it's thirty-five minutes old. I think he might have broken into your apartment and sent it from there..."
She hesitated, and then the tone of her voice suddenly changed.
"I...I'm now talking to the man who sent me that e-mail. Are you still there? I want to talk to you. Do you have the guts to talk to me? Why--"

The beep sounded again, cutting her off.
"End of message,"
announced a recorded voice.

Wide-eyed, Chloe stared at the man in the ski mask. She continued to cover herself. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Turn the water back on," he said.

But Chloe didn't move.

Finally, he stood up and turned on the water. All of a sudden, his hand shot out at her and he grabbed Chloe by the hair, almost snapping her head back. He brought his covered face close to hers. "I can smell the alcohol on your breath. They'll say you were drunk..."

"No, wait!" she shrieked. "Please, no!" Her screams echoed off the tiled walls.

Still holding onto her scalp, he slammed her head against the faucet.

Dazed, Chloe slumped into the water. It started to turn pink from the gaping wound on her forehead. He continued to hold her by the hair, and pushed her down toward the water.

The dunking revived her. Chloe struggled, clawing at his face, trying to scratch at his eyes. She pulled his mask halfway off, blinding him.

Then she heard Chuck's voice calling out:
"Chloe? Your back door's open! I heard a scream. Chloe, are you okay?"

The man in the ski mask hesitated, pulled his mask up over his eyes, and glanced toward the front hall. He let go of Chloe's wet hair, shoved her against the tiled wall, and then scrambled to his feet.

Chloe heard her neighbor running down the corridor. "Chuck!" she screamed. "Watch out, he's got a gun!"

Still trying to adjust his mask, the stranger barreled down the hallway.

"Hold it!" she heard Chuck yell.

There was a clamor, and then footsteps--racing toward the back door.

"This is the final boarding call for Flight 59 to Seattle,"
they announced over the speaker.

"Are you sure she's okay, honey?" Sydney asked. Clutching the phone to her ear, Sydney glanced over toward the boarding gate, where a few stragglers were still checking in.

"I just got off the phone with a cop who was at the scene," Joe told her. "They took Chloe to the hospital in an ambulance. It looks like she'll need some stitches in her forehead. Otherwise, she'll be okay, they assured me of that. The good news is that both Chloe and her neighbor got a halfway decent look at the guy. That's a start." Joe paused. "Did they just announce the last call a minute ago?"

"Yes," Sydney said.

"Then you better skedaddle," he said. "I'll try to find out more--and get a description of the guy. See you tomorrow in Seattle. Take care, sweetheart."

The man in seat 17A was one of very few people still awake on the darkened plane. But he kept his overhead light off. He liked sitting there in the shadows, planning.

His flight was scheduled to arrive at SeaTac at 11:50
P
.
M
., three hours after Sydney's flight was due. She and Eli would probably spend the night at her brother's place.

He liked anticipating her every move. He wondered how far she'd gotten tracking him down through the florists.

He'd made it more challenging for himself today by providing Sydney with his clues
before
going to kill the last two heroes. It was a necessary step. He was conditioning her, pulling the strings and making her dance.

This morning, while looking through the scope of his sniper's rifle, he'd watched Joe McCloud answer his cell phone on that El platform. He'd known it had been Sydney calling him. She'd also phoned Chloe, trying to warn her as well. But both warnings had come too late. Sydney hadn't really saved either of them. His lousy marksmanship had saved Joe, and his lousy luck--with that downstairs neighbor--had saved Chloe. He might have failed twice today, but so had Sydney.

He thought about Chloe's neighbor. Had that guy gotten a good look at his face? Probably not. He was too busy being a hero.

Even if the guy could ID him, it didn't really matter. Let the police hunt begin. He didn't need much more time.

Sydney had failed twice today. And now he was getting ready for her final test.

It was just hours away.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-THREE

At 3: 40
A
.
M
., when Sydney finally crawled into her brother's guest room bed, she listened to the traffic white noise from Interstate 5, and thought about her night. She hadn't expected to spend three hours at the hospital when she returned to Seattle this evening.

Kyle had met her at the airport, and told her about what he'd dubbed
Eli's Big Adventure
. Having suffered a bullet wound in the shoulder and a slight concussion, Eli was in satisfactory condition at Swedish Hospital. And Sydney, upon learning this, was a basket case--until she'd gotten to see her son.

He was in great spirits. Even as a little boy, Eli had been a very good patient. He was delighted with the fact that all three family members had been on the news tonight.

Burton Christopher Demick wasn't doing quite as well as Eli was--with nineteen stitches in his head and murder charges for the 1974 deaths of Loretta and Earl Sayers. On one of the evening news channels, Francesca Sayers, whose late father and brother had once been suspects in those murders, called Eli McCloud a hero.

Sydney refused to leave Eli's side. He was one hero this monster wouldn't get. Kyle and the hospital administration finally got her out of there by posting a security guard outside Eli's room.

Down the hall from Eli, Luis Fernandez was listed in stable condition after taking a bullet in the abdomen. Sydney needed to thank him in person for saving her son's life. "I know you probably think I'm a bitch because I left Joe," Sydney told him. "But I had my reasons at the time. Anyway, this bitch is very grateful for what you did earlier today and for what Joe says you've been doing for two months now. Thank you for being our guardian angel, Luis."

From his hospital bed, the swarthy man with the bloodshot eye cracked a smile. "You make it hard to hate you, lady. You're very welcome."

Joe called her later--at 2:30
A
.
M
. Chicago time. The police claimed to have caught the man who had attacked Chloe. They'd nabbed him trying to break into an apartment seven blocks from Chloe's place. He fit the vague description Chloe had given police: Caucasian, about thirty, no facial hair or scars, approximately six feet tall, about one hundred and eighty pounds. The suspect also had a rap sheet that included indecent exposure, assault, and armed robbery. Chloe and her neighbor would be identifying him at 11:30 in the morning.

"He's not the guy," Sydney insisted.

"Well, they won't find that out until 11:30," Joe said.

Lying in Kyle's guest room bed, Sydney tossed and turned. Even though Eli was safe, and probably in his best mood since their move to Seattle, she couldn't stop worrying about him and thinking how close she'd come to losing him today. She thought of Joe, and how she'd almost lost him as well.

Aidan had left a message on her answering machine at home:
"I hope your trip to Chicago was successful. If you're coming back tonight, I'd love to take you to lunch tomorrow. I owe you a meal. You can reach me tomorrow at my mother's place. I'll be cleaning there all day. Take care."
The time on his call had been 5:40, so he couldn't have seen Eli's story on the news yet.

Sydney barely slept at all, she was so wired--and so aware of every creaking floorboard, every branch that scraped against a window, every sound that rose above the white noise. She didn't want to go through this again tomorrow night. She prayed by then, they would have found this killer, whoever he was.

"Oh, you were probably right yesterday, suspecting Dan," Kyle said, four hours later. He set a plate of French toast in front of her. "He was just too good to be true. And the way he just showed up out of the blue the other day is really fishy. Plus as soon as I told him yesterday that you needed me to look after Eli because you were going out of town, suddenly
he
had to go out of town, too." Kyle shook his head and frowned. "I'll bet he's your psycho killer. I tell you, my taste in men. My very first crush was Rolf in
The Sound of Music.
Look what a son of a bitch he turned out to be."

"Did Dan ever call from Portland?" Sydney asked, sitting at the kitchen counter with a coffee cup in her hand. She stared down at her breakfast.

"No," Kyle sighed. He glanced at his wristwatch. "I better get ready for work. I hate these first days back after I take an extended weekend." He pointed to the uneaten French toast he'd set in front of her. "You haven't touched your breakfast. Don't you want it?"

Glancing up at him, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I'm just too nervous to eat."

He took her plate away. "I'll just freeze this." He pulled some sandwich bags from the kitchen drawer. "You know, as long as we're considering people who suddenly just dropped into our lives, have you thought about Aidan? After all these years, he conveniently turns up. And he had a crazy, overbearing mother--that's classic serial killer stuff."

Sydney was too tired to argue with him. But Aidan had come back into her life by accident, because his mother had died. And Mrs. Cosgrove had been the one to reestablish contact, after seeing her on the local news. The murders had started about a week before Mrs. Cosgrove passed away, so no one could say her death suddenly triggered this killing spree.

"Oh, I'm probably talking out of my ass again," Kyle said, sticking the plastic bags of French toast in his freezer. "If Aidan was the killer, he could have easily bumped you off when he slept over at your place night before last. And he didn't. So I guess that lets him off the hook."

Sydney couldn't quite agree with her brother's logic. Of course, Aidan was no murderer. She'd saved his life. Why in God's name would he have turned against her?

If anything, Aidan's presence in the house had more than likely kept them alive the night before last.

Then again, over the last two weeks, this killer had probably had several opportunities to murder both her and Eli. But it was all a game for him. With the tokens of his murders, and the flowers for his victims' next of kin, he was enjoying this. He wouldn't have wanted her dead yet. That would have put an end to the game.

Still, Sydney had to wonder if--after the two failed murders yesterday--he was growing tired of this game. He had to know she was on to him. He couldn't prolong it any longer. He was running out of time.

And so was she.

When Sydney first spotted the mess on her dining room floor, her heart stopped. She thought it was some kind of message about another killing. But then Kyle reminded her that Eli had discovered the old Hallmark card after dumping out the contents of that breakfront drawer.

Kyle had driven her back to the apartment so they could pick up a change of clothes for Eli to wear when he left the hospital this afternoon.

Sydney checked her messages. There was a new one--made only twenty minutes ago:
"Hi, Sydney, it's Aidan again. I read about Eli in the morning papers. You must be really shaken up, but it sounds like he's okay. If there's anything I could do for you guys, don't hesitate to ask. I understand if you're too busy to call back. But if you want to touch base, I'll be at my mother's apartment all day. Take care, and say hi to Eli for me."

She retreated upstairs to Eli's room. Stepping through his doorway, she saw something on his pillow and stopped in her tracks. At first, Sydney thought it was another dead bird. But then she came closer and saw it was a china figurine of an angelic little boy. His shoulder and arm were blackened. Someone must have held the figurine over a flame. Sydney immediately thought of Eli, her latest hero, her little boy, lying in his hospital bed with a shoulder wound.

Breathless, she ran into her bedroom and called the hospital. "Eli McCloud's room, please," she said, once the operator answered. "He's in 204."

It rang once. "Hello?" Eli answered.

"Hi, honey, how are you?" she asked anxiously.

There was silence for a moment.

"Eli? Are you all right?"

"Not really, Mom," he whispered. "There's this guy here in my room..."

"What?" she asked, a panic sweeping through her.

"Want to talk to him?" Eli said in a normal tone.

Sydney was baffled for a moment until she heard the voice on the other end of the line: "Hi, sweetie."

"Joe?" She put a hand over her heart and let out a little laugh. "When did you get in? Why didn't you call me? I would have picked you up."

"I touched down about thirty minutes ago and came directly here. Where are you? How soon can you make it over?"

"I'm here with Kyle at the apartment," she replied, plopping down on her bed. "I'm hitting the florist after this, and then I'll be right there. But listen, I just got another calling card--a china figure of a little boy, only the arm and shoulder are all mangled and burned up. He left it on Eli's bed."

"Oh, Jesus," Joe murmured.

"The last two times he's gone after a hero, he gave me a souvenir
before
he actually went in for the kill. The tokens have become warnings now, Joe. I think he's going after Eli next. Please, honey, don't leave his side--not even for a second..."

The clerk behind the counter at Beautiful Blooms was an Armenian man who reminded her a bit of Danny DeVito. He was checking his computer records and card files.

Sydney anxiously drummed her fingers on the countertop. Between the plants in baskets hanging overhead and the buckets of flowers scattered throughout the store, there wasn't much room to move around.

She'd driven to the florist--with Kyle following in his car. He'd waited until she'd stepped inside Beautiful Blooms, then he'd waved good-bye and driven off.

"Yeah, we've had several orders here for Sydney Jordan recently, most of them out-of-state deliveries," the florist said. "What do you need exactly?"

"I'd like to see the credit card that was used to pay for these orders," Sydney said.

"Oh, that I can't do," the florist replied, shaking his head. "Besides, Mr. Jordan always pays in cash."

"
Mister
Jordan?" she said.

The florist nodded. "He's one of our best customers. Why are you asking about him anyway?"

"Because I'm Sydney Jordan." She fished her wallet from her purse and showed the man her driver's license.

In turn, the florist dug out a sales slip for her. Sydney studied it. It was a July 9 order for a $49.90 sympathy bouquet, delivered to the Cook County Recovery Shelter in Chicago. The sender's address and phone number were hers. The spelling of her first name was identical.

"Have you ever seen this Mr. Jordan?" Sydney asked.

"No, my salesgirl, Jill, has always waited on him. In fact, I think she has a yen for him."

"Is she here?"

"Nope, called in sick this morning."

"Well, may I have her phone number?" Sydney asked. "It's very important that I speak to her."

The short man let out a sigh, and scribbled the phone number on the back of a small sympathy card. "I doubt you'll get ahold of her. I just tried calling her a half hour ago, but she wasn't picking up."

"Could I see the other sales slips you have for his orders?" Sydney asked.

With another sigh, the florist dug out several sales slips and shoved them across the counter at her. Sydney examined them. All the next of kin to her slain heroes were there--along with special instructions about the sentiments on the sympathy cards from
Sydney Jordan
. Two of the slips had the word CANCEL scrawled across them. One was for delivery to a Mrs. Stephanie Finch in Evanston, and the other to Mrs. Joseph McCloud at Number 9 Tudor Court in Seattle. She wondered how come they hadn't noticed that it was the same address
Mister
Sydney Jordan had been calling his own.

"One more order is being delivered tomorrow morning," the man said. "It's local, a Seattle address." He showed her the sales slip.

Sydney glanced at the name of the recipient:
Ms. Rikki Cosgrove
. She read the instructions for what was to be written on the card:
"I'm so sorry for your loss. Aidan was a wonderful young man. I'll miss him. Sydney Jordan."

"Oh, no," Sydney whispered.

How could she be so stupid? The burnt little boy figurine was Aidan.

Obviously, the killer didn't know Aidan's mother was dead.

Grabbing her address book out of her purse, she looked up Rikki's phone number and dialed it. There was no answer. Yet Aidan had phoned from there an hour ago, saying he'd be there all day.
God, please, don't let him be dead already,
Sydney thought.

"Listen, thank you," she said to the florist.

As she hurried out of the store, Sydney phoned the hospital again and asked for Eli's room. Joe answered this time.

"I was wrong about the figurine," she explained edgily. "It isn't Eli. He's going after Aidan Cosgrove. I'll explain it to you later. Aidan's at his mother's place..." She gave Joe Rikki's address. "Could you come meet me at Rikki's place? Oh, but wait. I don't want you to leave Eli alone..."

"Don't worry, I'll get Luis to keep him company," Joe said. "And don't go in that building by yourself. Wait outside for me."

"Thank you, honey." Sydney clicked off the line.

Then she jumped in her car, started up the engine, and pulled out of her parking space. Another car nearly plowed into her. Sydney heard the tires screeching and then a blast from the horn.

"Damn it, Sydney," she muttered to herself. "Stupid." Tears in her eyes, she glanced up at the rearview mirror. The other car was still sitting there.

Sydney pressed harder on the accelerator. The last time she'd gone to Rikki Cosgrove's apartment, she'd been too late.

She didn't want that to happen again.

The morning sky had turned overcast as Sydney climbed out of her car and hurried toward the ugly, nine-story building's front entrance. She pressed 808 several times, but there was no answer. Then Sydney glanced at the door and cringed. The lock was broken.